The present invention comprises a new Ipomoea, botanically known as Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam, and commonly known as Ornamental Sweet Potato, and hereinafter referred to by the variety name ‘Seki Blahrt.’ These plants are grown, not for their flowers, but for their foliage and plant habit characteristics. These plants flower very rarely and then only under strict short day lengths. Each flower is ephemeral, in that it only lasts up to 24 hours, and blooms mostly through the night and early morning hours.
‘Seki Blahrt’ is a product of a planned breeding program. The new cultivar ‘Seki Blahrt’ has compact and mounding plant habit, then becomes more outwardly trailing with age, vigorous, freely branching with dense foliage, and very dark, almost black, cordate or ‘heart’ shaped foliage, with soft pink and white flowers.
‘Seki Blahrt’ originated from a hybrid cross in a controlled breeding program in Gilroy, Calif. USA. The female parent was ‘Sweet Caroline Purple’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 14,912). ‘Sweet Caroline Purple’ has a less compact plant habit, larger and lighter colored palmate foliage than ‘Seki Blahrt.’
The male parent of ‘Seki Blahrt’ was ‘Sweet Caroline Sweetheart Purple’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 18,573). ‘Sweet Carolina Sweetheart Purple’ has a less compact plant habit, lighter colored leaves and stems than ‘Seki Blahrt.’
‘Seki Blahrt’ was selected as one flowering plant within the progeny of the stated cross in March 2007, in a controlled environment in Gilroy, Calif. USA.
The pollination took place in October 2006 and the seed sown in December 2006. The first act of asexual reproduction of ‘Seki Blahrt’ was accomplished when vegetative cuttings were taken from the initial selection in the March 2007 in a controlled environment in Gilroy, Calif. USA.
Horticultural examination of plants grown from cuttings of the plant initiated in March 2007 in Gilroy, Calif. USA, and continuing thereafter, has demonstrated that the combination of characteristics as herein disclosed for ‘Seki Blahrt’ are firmly fixed and are retained through successive generations of asexual reproduction.
‘Seki Blahrt’ has not been observed under all possible environmental conditions. The phenotype may vary significantly with variations in environment such as temperature, light intensity and day length.
A Plant Breeder's Right for this cultivar was applied for in Canada on Dec. 24, 2007. ‘Seki Blahrt’ has not been made publicly available more than one year prior to the filing of this application.